PowerPivot

"This is one of the times of year where we all have to be exquisitely careful of our own inspiration."

Here in the late hours of the year, it can be tempting to dismantle, to take apart, to solve a dead end with dynamite. Especially if you're an intensive, and you don't know if you're entirely alive unless something is tugging at the edge of impossibility. As the solstice nears, perhaps this is the time for wrapping ourselves in darkness and stillness and breath. And finding the strength and finding the dream. Retrieving who we have been that we loved.

Transcription and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/dont-blow-it-up-unless-its-time

Recorded 17 December 2023.

"When we want to do this sacred work of uprooting injustice and inequity where we're seeing it, we're not just doing it for us. We're holding a space for change to be different."

Meet Anuradha Kowtha (they/them), founder of The Kowtha Constellation and a partner in Sowing Post Capitalist Seeds. "My work’s thread could be described as undoing the impact of the inherent indoctrination from capitalism and colonialism on who we are and how we do our work in the world."

Join Anuradha and Leela Sinha in a lovely and rich conversation that encompasses transformative justice, the meaning of 'pariah', Indian classical dance, and holding spaces for change.

Connect with Anuradha!

Instagram: @thekowthaconstellation

https://www.sowingpostcapitalistseeds.com/ https://www.thekowthaconstellation.com/

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/episode/interview-anuradha-kowtha

Recorded 5 May 2023.

"I do not dream of labor. But I do dream of my mere existence being beautiful and interesting enough for a small child to stare and wonder for hours."

Let's think about how our work differs from our labor. Let's think about how we build bridges and buffers and install drivers to ease communication between different people in our organizations, just like we use those devices to ease communication between different places and different machines. Also, let's talk about the true mother of invention: irritation.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/i-do-not-dream-of-labor

Links!

You can find Dr. Emily Garside and her substack here:

https://substack.com/@emilygarsidewrites

Marge Piercy's poem "To be of use":

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57673/to-be-of-use

The Rube Goldberg Institute for Innovation and Creativity:

https://www.rubegoldberg.org/

Recorded 5 December 2023.

"This is your reminder to remove one barrier. This is your reminder to find the thing that you already did. This is your reminder to love on yourself in a little tiny ways...."

Thoughts on removing- and sometimes adding- barriers to help us do the the things we need to do. Especially when that thing is to give our selves the care that we so often neglect.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/this-is-your-reminder

Recorded 25 November 2023.

"It's not that I don't want the art that my body can make. It's just that sometimes it's been too hard to get there."

On asking our bones and muscles what they need, and pausing to listen to them before we launch ourselves out of bed in the morning. Also- our bodies as complicated sewing machines, and fiddling around in our guts with tweezers.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/this-morning-I-lay-still

Recorded 25 November 2023.

"You're quicker than you think, you're faster than you think. We're intensives. When we really do get focused, we really do move fast...."

Finding that focus sometimes depends on choosing a single, solvable problem, one step at a time. And we can do that. Really.

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/faster-to-pleasure

Recorded 9 October 2023.

"Can I tell you something? Use the tools. Use the tools you have. Use them all the way...."

We'll start with the dishwasher- but you know this isn't just about the dishwasher. This is about committing ourselves to really use the tools that we have learned can help us, and to using them fully. For our own good, and for the good of those around us.

Transcript and show notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/dishwasher

Recorded 27 September 2023.

"It's a hard thing for us as intensives, to let go of our original vision. And sometimes we get stuck."

What do we do when we have to shift from plan A to plan B or even to plan Q? What do we do when we have to pick the tomatoes early?

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/picking-early

Recorded 25 September 2023.

Samara Bay: "When we tell a story about a tiny moment, and how it impacted us, it is actually the most revealing thing of our character we could possibly do. Where we come from does not win over what we did in a hard moment."

Meet Samara Bay, who coaches rising business leaders, political hopefuls, and public figures who need to speak in a voice they recognize as their own to truly make waves. She is the author of Permission to Speak, a "game-changing guide to redefining what power and authority sound like." Join Samara and Leela Sinha as they laugh, cry, and share stories in this special interview episode of Power Pivot.

"it's a decolonizing act, and it is a queering act, to start to question the ways that we have normalized and normied ourselves: for safety, for proximal power; and to love on those instincts of ours to get by, while also getting curious about what else is possible." -Samara Bay

Permission to Speak is available in hardcover, ebook, or audiobook (read by the author) from Penguin Random House.

For a free warm-up and Samara's newsletter, head to https://www.samarabay.com/goodies

Or, check out Samara Bay on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samarabay

Full transcript and show notes can be found here:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/episode/samara-bay

Recorded 23 October 2023.

"Forcing ourselves, as intensives, to take time and energy and focus never goes well. Expansives call that discipline, but we call that torture. Don't torture yourself."

On the virtues and challenges of taking one's time- and how feeling in flow and getting things just right, sometimes doesn't feel like taking any time at all.

Mr. Rogers singing "I Like to Take My Time."

https://youtu.be/z0gtqPURoiM?si=lY6djnwod16-zq_j

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/captivate-podcast/burnout

Recorded 25 September 2023.